Dick Buek

In 1974, Buek was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame.

Buek is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. He was characterized by Oakley Hall in Hall's 1963 novel, The Downhill Racers, and portrayed by Beau Bridges in the 1975 movie, The Other Side of the Mountain.

Buek seemed to be fearless and paid a heavy price for it. He suffered two broken backs, one from a motorcycle accident in 1953 which crushed his leg, pelvis, and shoulder. At the national championships at Aspen the following winter, he could still only bend his right knee sixty degrees. Pins in his left shoulder hampered his stance. Though he won the race, he was not selected to compete at the 1954 World Championships in Sweden.

A member of the 1952 Olympic team, Buek was twelfth in the downhill at Norefjell. That year, he was the national champion in downhill, and won a second national downhill title in 1954. His record included two runner-up efforts, a third and a fourth at the national championships.

Known as "The Madman of Donner Summit," Buek exhibited a "go for broke" attitude that brought him success and pain in many downhill competitions. A serious racer by the age of 18, he did a straight schuss at the Inferno Race on Mount Lassen in 1948. In 1949, he won the Silver Dollar Derby and the Far West Ski Association's downhill title.

Richard (Mad Dog) Buek (November 4, 1929 – November 3, 1957) was an American alpine ski racer and later a daredevil stunt pilot. A fiancé of champion ski racer Jill Kinmont, whose tragic life story was made into the inspirational hit Hollywood motion picture The Other Side of the Mountain (1975), Buek died in a plane crash at the age of 27.